{"title":"A hydrologic signature approach to analysing wildfire impacts on overland flow","authors":"L. A. Bolotin, H. McMillan","doi":"10.1002/hyp.15215","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Post-fire flooding and debris flows are often triggered by increased overland flow resulting from wildfire impacts on soil infiltration capacity and surface roughness. Increasing wildfire activity and intensification of precipitation with climate change make improving understanding of post-fire overland flow a particularly pertinent task. Hydrologic signatures, which are metrics that summarize the hydrologic regime of watersheds using rainfall and runoff time series, can be calculated for large samples of watersheds relatively easily to understand post-fire hydrologic processes. We demonstrate that signatures designed specifically for overland flow reflect changes to overland flow processes with wildfire that align with previous case studies on burned watersheds. For example, signatures suggest increases in infiltration-excess overland flow and decrease in saturation-excess overland flow in the first and second years after wildfire in the majority of watersheds examined. We show that climate, watershed and wildfire attributes can predict either post-fire signatures of overland flow or changes in signature values with wildfire using machine learning. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), air temperature, amount of developed/undeveloped land, soil thickness and clay content were the most used predictors by well-performing machine learning models. Signatures of overland flow provide a streamlined approach for characterizing and understanding post-fire overland flow, which is beneficial for watershed managers who must rapidly assess and mitigate the risk of post-fire hydrologic hazards after wildfire occurs.</p>","PeriodicalId":13189,"journal":{"name":"Hydrological Processes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hyp.15215","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Hydrological Processes","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hyp.15215","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Environmental Science","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Post-fire flooding and debris flows are often triggered by increased overland flow resulting from wildfire impacts on soil infiltration capacity and surface roughness. Increasing wildfire activity and intensification of precipitation with climate change make improving understanding of post-fire overland flow a particularly pertinent task. Hydrologic signatures, which are metrics that summarize the hydrologic regime of watersheds using rainfall and runoff time series, can be calculated for large samples of watersheds relatively easily to understand post-fire hydrologic processes. We demonstrate that signatures designed specifically for overland flow reflect changes to overland flow processes with wildfire that align with previous case studies on burned watersheds. For example, signatures suggest increases in infiltration-excess overland flow and decrease in saturation-excess overland flow in the first and second years after wildfire in the majority of watersheds examined. We show that climate, watershed and wildfire attributes can predict either post-fire signatures of overland flow or changes in signature values with wildfire using machine learning. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), air temperature, amount of developed/undeveloped land, soil thickness and clay content were the most used predictors by well-performing machine learning models. Signatures of overland flow provide a streamlined approach for characterizing and understanding post-fire overland flow, which is beneficial for watershed managers who must rapidly assess and mitigate the risk of post-fire hydrologic hazards after wildfire occurs.
期刊介绍:
Hydrological Processes is an international journal that publishes original scientific papers advancing understanding of the mechanisms underlying the movement and storage of water in the environment, and the interaction of water with geological, biogeochemical, atmospheric and ecological systems. Not all papers related to water resources are appropriate for submission to this journal; rather we seek papers that clearly articulate the role(s) of hydrological processes.